In this post, I talked about an experiment in a real-life ABC analysis of how I had the best day ever. As promised, I am presenting my current morning routine. I have found that I crave these activities if I do not complete them. The essential bottom line of this post is the importance of a morning routine, not necessarily the activities that occur.
Early Wake-up
I’d heard it for the last several years. “Wake up early,” they said. “If you have children, you should wake up an hour earlier than they do,” the books and podcasts said. I thought that was ridiculous...until this past summer. I finally decided to try getting up earlier than my daughter. What could it hurt? For the past 5 months, I’ve woken up no later than 5 each morning. My alarm is set for 4:55a and I gradually wake up from there. I am typically out of bed by 5:10.
It’s absolutely amazing. I have a solid 90 minutes to get anything done. I cannot recommend waking up early enough. I’ve always been an “early riser” but unless I had a paper, assignment or some other contingency like the world's largest commute holding me hostage I was never up before 6. This has been a game-changer for my entire life.
Exercise
Nearly 7 out of 7 days a week I complete at least 30 minutes of exercise between 5 and 5:45 am. Currently, this looks like a yoga video either on youtube or Amazon Prime. Completing this 30 minutes of intentional movement first thing in the morning opens up the rest of my day to be free. My yoga practice rotates between typical flow yoga and power or HIIT yoga.
I like getting my exercise done as early as possible. It’s nice to have it accomplished so early in the day. When I’ve skipped morning exercise, getting it tackled some other time in the day becomes overwhelming and I end up “stealing” time from other things.
Journal
After I’ve done my yoga practice, I grab a cup of coffee and I spend approximately 10 minutes with a journal to review my overall goals and write down gratitude from the previous day. This has really been a critical point in accomplishing everything that I want to do in my life. I’ve toyed with adding additional time with a journal however I haven’t quite figured out what that will look like. In addition, I’ve absolutely never been a journaler and in fact, the idea of a free/write activity causes a high level of anxiety.
Planning
I spend approximately 10 minutes reviewing my upcoming day. Because I complete a weekly review on Saturdays and have a weekly planning date with my husband on Sunday evenings I have a pretty good overall handle on what is on the schedule but I like to revisit and regroup each morning. Plus, there’s always the possibility that there’s been a cancellation and some things need to be reconfigured. I try very very hard not to “get to work” during this time though!
More Coffee
Each morning I drink 2 cups of coffee. I would probably drink more but that’s all that’s allocated to me and allows my husband to take a tumbler with him for his commute. Typically between planning and reading/writing, I get up and refresh my cup. Guess what?! January 1 I gave up sugar in my coffee which I feel definitely made me drink the coffee slower and with more intention. I also recently got a mug warmer which has been a game-changer for savoring the coffee!
Reading or writing
At this very moment, my morning reading consists of The 7 Habits of Effective Families by Stephen Covey and improving our Personal Goals Accountability Course. While it technically has nothing to do with my goal this year of developing my leadership skills it does relate to my core value of learning and family. Each morning I spend approximately 30 minutes reading a book that is typically non-fiction OR I spend 30 minutes creating content for YOU! Both of those activities are very reinforcing to me so it doesn’t seem like a chore or like work to do them first thing in the morning. In addition, it’s quiet in my house and nice to have some time alone.
Right around this time, the tiny human wakes up and we’re into a very different type of morning routine...the first of our family routines.
How can you implement a morning routine?
Start where you are!! Open up your journal and take some notes on what you already do each day. Chances are that you have a few things that are routine or habits and we can build from there!! In my life, I had super lofty goals for a morning routine that I’d write out but again, it was SUPER lofty. For me, I needed to get up earlier and that was what I tackled. It all started with setting my alarm 15 minutes earlier each week. Eventually, I settled on 5:30 as the magic time. Please note: I didn’t do anything else! I simply woke up at 5:30 each morning and did whatever I wanted to do. It wasn’t life-changing or productive. I laid in bed and scrolled social media! Regardless, I was working only on getting up earlier. Once I had achieved what I’d consider mastery on getting up earlier, I changed the coffee program to be ready at 5:30 as opposed to the 6:00 it was previously programmed for.
Somewhere along the line, I heard that the key to a solid morning routine is that you are excited by what comes next!! Oooh, friend, changing the coffee to be ready at 5:30 caused me to want to get out of bed earlier. (Our coffee maker sucks. It doesn’t keep coffee hot so get it early...that’s a whole other story.) I started to get out of bed at 5:30 and get some things done. Adding the yoga to the AM routine once my evening started to get cluttered moved my wake-up time to 5 and it wasn’t very difficult.
Start small dear friend. Find something you are excited to do in the morning or something that makes it reinforcing to start.